DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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What it is: A rarely screened western from director Nicholas Ray.
Why you want to see it: After a devastating injury, rodeo star Jeff McCloud (Robert Mitchum) returns to his home town for civilian work. He lands a job at the Merritt ranch, where ranch hand Wes (Arthur Kennedy) hopes to learn the rodeo ropes, despite protests from his wife Louise (Susan Hayward). The trailer for The Lusty Men promises “men who ride hard, play hard, love hard!” “The payoff is 1000 lusty thrills!” The extensive writing credits include Horace McCoy, who captures the marathon dancing subculture so well in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? which bodes well for this look at rodeo life. Not available on commercial DVD. Also screening this weekend in the AFI’s Nicholas Ray series, Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino in the classic noir On Dangerous Ground (February 18, 21 and 22).
View the lusty trailer.
Saturday February 18 through Monday February 20 at the AFI.
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A rendering of Mikhail Khodorkovsky from an animated sequence in Cyril Tuschi’s documentary, KHODORKOVSKY. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.What it is: Rags to riches to Siberia in the new Russia.
Why you want to see it: Cyril Tuschi’s documentary begins auspiciously with great visual flair: a vision of snow appears slowly, as a camera pans across a barren Siberian landscape. The forbidding turrets atop this snowy tundra mark the current home of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose 2003 arrest aboard a private plane is boldly reenacted in the film. After the fall of the Russian Empire, Khodorkovsky made his fortune in oil, but when he began to protest government corruption he caught the bad side of Vladimir Putin and bought himself an extended cold snap. This is documentary as thriller, or so Tuschi hopes, but the opening visuals set a high bar that is not sustained despite recurring animated interludes. Khodorkovsky is a public figure but an elusive subject, at least as the director puts it: too many early scenes buy into the documentary conceit of the personal quest. This conceit may be earned: on two occasions, film footage was stolen, perhaps by KGB agents. But the directors story pales next to his subject’s, and the bold graphics of the animated sequences feel increasingly forced. The film works best when the director spends time with the film’s prinicpals, including a surprisingly sympathetic former KGB agent. The rise and fall of a man who was once the 16th richest man in the world should make a more compelling film, but the inherent intrigue of the subject matter makes Khodorkosvky watchable.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street.
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Maria Schneider and Marlon BrandoWhat it is: An unlikely choice for the AFI’s Screen Valentines series
Why you want to see it: Alternately hailed and reviled at the time for its frank sexuality, Bernardo Bertolucci’s film has not lost its ability to provoke. Marlon Brando stars as a widower who begins an anonymous and tumultuous affair with young Parisienne Maria Schneider. Gato Barbieri’s swooning score and beautiful cinematography by Vittorio Storaro make sordid melodrama into art, and Brando’s performance from howl to chewing gum is one for the ages. Also showing this weekend in the Screen Valentines series: Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney in Two for the Road (Feb 17 and 18).
View the trailer. February 17-19 and 22-23 at the AFI.
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Buster Keaton, from the collection of Bruce Lawton.The First Kings of Comedy
What it is: The inaugural screening of a series which brings classic silent films to Northern Virginia.
Why you want to see it: Inspired by the success of The Artist, McLean’s Alden Theatre presents a series of silent classics, with live musical accompaniment by pianist Ben Model. The series will run once a month on Wednesday nights. Next week’s program features legends of silent comedy, including Charlie Chaplin (“The Pawn Shop,” 1916), Harold Lloyd (“High and Dizzy,” 1920), Buster Keaton (“The Goat,” 1921), Charley Chase (“Dog Shy,” 1926), and Laurel and Hardy (“You’re Darn Tootin’,” 1928). Film historian/preservationist Bruce Lawton will appear to introduce the program. Purists (like me!) will be glad to hear the titles will be presented on celluloid.
See Buster Keaton in “The Goat.”
Wednesday, February 22 at 8:00pm at the Alden Theatre, 1234 Ingleside Ave., McLean.
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Black Moon, Hole Punch #7 (Amie Siegel, 2010). Courtesy of Amie Siegel.What it is:The National Gallery’s American Originals Now series focusses on experimental filmmaker Amie Siegel.
Why you want to see it: If the title sounds familiar, the Gallery showed Louis Malle’s dystopian fantasy Black Moon just last fall. Artist Amie Siegel takes Malle’s feature as inspiration for an art installation that examines the nature of Malle’s film and of the film experience. Her work includes altered still photographs from the film and a video installation. Siegel will appear at the Gallery at this weekend’s screening, “to speak about her processes and transformation of ideas across various exhibition formats and contexts.”
Saturday February 18 at 2:30 at the National Gallery of Art.
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What it is: Sketch comedy before SNL.
Why you want to see it: Director Ken Shapiro began his career as a child actor on The Milton Berle Show in 1948. A quarter-century later, he directed a talking penis. The articulate googly-eyed member is just one part of this low budget sketch comedy anthology from 1974. The satirical commercials have probably aged better than the tedious drug humor, but thanks to the Washington Psychotronic Film Society for opening up this time capsule. Starring Chevy Chase and Richard Belzer, at least one of whom went on to better things.
View the trailer.
Monday February 20 at 8:00 pm at McFadden’s. Free.
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Also opening this week: Ralph Fiennes stars in and directs an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
